Rarest of Russian Stamps at Cherrystone

September 02, 2010

Formerly part of the Faberge collection, this strip of five blue and brown 1857 Russian stamps has been described as “the most important piece of Russian philately.” One of 53 lots in the Alexander Collection of Imperial Russia, it goes on sale September 16th at Cherrystone Auctioneers in New York, carrying a pre-sale estimate of $250,000.

Why so valuable? It’s the largest known multiple of this particular offering, has impeccable pedigree, and is considered in very good condition, although each stamp has been cancelled by hand with an inked X,; one has a minute tear.

In the two days preceding this sale, Cherrystone will auction a vast selection of stamps and postal artifacts from around the world, most notably a 1851 unused 12p Canadian stamp, which has a pre-sale estimate of $150,000.

Only two copies of the “Black Honduras,” considered the world’s rarest air mail stamp, were known to exist, and one of them has been lost. The surviving example, which Cherrystone Auctions will offer on January 11, set a record at a 1961 auction in New York when it fetched a record $24,500–at the time the most ever paid at an American auction for a single stamp. This time around in New York it’s expected to fly quite a bit higher, to $125,000.

Stamps printed upside down keep emerging from Cherrstone, particularly those printed in mainland China decades ago. One 1941 depiction of Sun Yat Sen is expected to sell in the neighborhood of $200,00 at the December New York auction. It’s thought only one sheet of 50 got out of the post office before the error was spotted. A 1923 Peking stamp with the 2-cent postage inverted, one of only 13 known to exist, is estimated at $150,000.

Sometimes the Postal Service can be as unpredictable as the stock market. In 1992, the Post Office came out with a stamp to commemorate the Stock Exchange’s Bicentennial, but 56 were misprinted and the buildings in the center were upside down. A single today is listed at $76,000. At its September 13 sale in New York, Cherrystone’s is selling a rare block of four.